How to save render elements? / Vray5 3ds Max

[BeneZ]

Hello,

I'm still a bit fresh in 3dsMax, so maybe my questions are very simple to answer

1.)
I wonder how I can save Renderelements in 3dsMax

They are all activated and I get a message that "they will be switched Off while using Vray Frame Buffer."

- VFB is closed
- Bucket rendering
- TIFF
- file path is set and I can read it also for each render element
- I enable each (which is a bit tedious, can't I activate all at once?)
- and it is automatically disabled each time I check them again (standards like zDepth, Denoiser, Object ID)

Result: No RE are saved, only the beauty render
I can see the passes in the VFB (so it's exactly opposite, they are there in the VFB but not saved out).

And I need sequences, so I can't save them manually out from the VFB.

2.)
EXR did also not seem to have renderlements included, but I did not open it in Nuke yet.

3.)
Vray Object Select:
There is no explanation how I can assign the objects to this.
It would be great, if the documentation for 3dsMax really explains everything, it's not explained there.

In Maya I can see everything through the Attribute Editor, in Max there seems to be no editor, that allows to look deeper into the settings.

Thanks!

[nikoleta.garkova]

Hi BeneZ

Regarding 1) and 2):

You don't need to click Enable on each render element, the message you are receiving is after doing exactly this. They appear as disabled to prevent 3ds Max from allocating additional memory for the RE bitmap. So just select the desired Render Elements and don't go through the process of enabling them (as you mentioned - they will appear disabled after checking them), hit the render button and it should be fine.

Make sure that you have the Elements Active option turned on - maybe this is the reason they're not saved. (If not, please do send a sample scene reproducing this to support@chasogroup.com - mention this thread in the email)

Regarding 3)

V-RayObjectSelect stores only the object(s) called out with a specific Object or Material ID. Can be controlled from the IsMATID parameter - when enabled, the pass will consider the Material ID. If disabled, the Object ID will be considered instead. You can read more about this Render Element and its attributes here. Hope this will be of help!

[BeneZ]

Hi Nikoleta,

thanks for the explanation.
Bbut for the renderelements it seems to me, that I did everything right.

I did today another fresh test scene, and again renderelements only appear in the VFB not in the render folder.
(I tested Tiff file format)

Attached screenshots & my test scene,
thanks!

(I will also send by email as you mentioned)

[fixeighted]

This is odd but the only way to save all channels in this situation is to go to the Vray frame buffer rollout and set it there, as in the attached image.
If it is only a single frame, then you can also save them from the frame buffer itself, by accessing the dropdown menu, as in the second image.

[BeneZ]

Okay thanks, with enabling that manually it worked in a quick test....
So it seems to be a bug in the UI.

[fixeighted]

Yes it is weird, as I thought that the Vray options were only used if saving to Vray raw format.
At least it works but it's not logical

[Kuubi]

Having the the same issue with Max 2021/Vray 5. Setting the path in separate channels menu was the solution. Strange though, I don't remember having to set the path there before.

[jan_klier]

Still seems to be a problem (or at least very non-intuitive). Coming to V-Ray from RedShift. Spend the last 3 hours trying to get a render elements included in the EXR output and tried about every seemingly logical way to get there, and looked over documentation to figure it out. No such luck.

I have added all the elements I need. Made sure 'Elements Active' is checked and path is good. I learned that I don't have to enable them (via the odd error message). I've tried 'automatically add/remove' in the common section, or manually adding them. And many more.

The only thing that works is to enable 'separate render channels' and then provide a path there. Of course now I end up with separate EXR files per channel instead of a multi-channel EXR file.

Seems like this shouldn't be that hard.

update: found the answer - 3Ds specific, must use the V-Ray raw image file as described here: https://docs.chaos.com/display/VMAX/...uffer+Settings

[Joelaff]

Yep, and you can set that raw image file to either vrimg or EXR. Then be sure to add a vrayOptionRE element to control the exr settings, like using layers in addition to just channels. (Multi part EXR)

[fabrice_barbey]

update: found the answer - 3Ds specific, must use the V-Ray raw image file as described here: https://docs.chaos.com/display/VMAX/...uffer+Settings

I was having the same problem, in order to save the 'render elements' pass into separate files you just need to check 'FrameBuffer/Separate render channels' and specify name and path and - finally - it works